Should I buy a run down house now or should I wait?

qwert_yuiop

waltsalt wrote: »

I think he was suggesting house prices would rise to (try to) keep in line with average GB house prices. Which is probably true. Houses here are cheap compared to ones on the mainland.

So prices will go up. If it happens in a slow but steady and controllable way then they'll keep creeping up until there is a closer parity (this may take many years).

Surely the last ten years or so have demonstrated that it is a very different market here, with very little correlation with GB? Indeed, it seems Scotland and England have different markets. Houses are cheap in northern England - does this mean they must rise in tandem with the south east? Probably not.

Barnsley, bootle, Merthyr Tydfil. Cheap places to buy, and likely to remain so.

waltsalt

Still a bit behind even the north of England in terms of average prices.

I found these figures off of the internet so they must be true (right?):

Average House Prices
North East - £151,169
North West - £168,674
Yorkshire - £169,215
East Midlands - £178,326
Northern Ireland - £141,173

qwert_yuiop

The north of England includes Leeds, Harrogate, Manchester, Sheffield and plenty of other prosperous dynamic places. Just as there was no economic justification for the late lamented bubble here up to 2007, there is little rationale for a rise based on here being cheaper than knaresborough.

Mistral001

waltsalt wrote: »

I think he was suggesting house prices would rise to (try to) keep in line with average GB house prices. Which is probably true. Houses here are cheap compared to ones on the mainland.

So prices will go up. If it happens in a slow but steady and controllable way then they'll keep creeping up until there is a closer parity (this may take many years). If it happens too fast...........well, we all know what happens then.

Just remember, in general people are idiots. They will not spend what they can afford, just what they are told they can afford.

You mix up two different things there. Firstly your theory that house price here follow those in GB is not really founded on fact. There have been several house price booms in GB over the last over the last 50 years and house prices here have not always followed them. It was only in the 2007 that house prices followed GB to any significant level and it could be argued that they did not necessarily follow GB but RoI and the rest the north Atlantic countries.


Secondly you mention the availability of money. This is perhaps the biggest factor which influenced the 2007 boom. The availability of money could change but is unlikely as it would mean that an already over-heated market in the SE or England would just become ridiculous prompting an inevitable collapse in prices.